Category: Fiction

WWW Wednesday 28 January 2026

Published on by Margaret1 Comment

WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently I’m reading The Inheritance of loss by Kiran Desai, the winner of several prizes including the 2006 Booker Prize. It’s a book I bought in 2007 and meant to read long before now. I’m reading this slowly and so far it’s looking good.

This is set in the Himalayas where a judge and his granddaughter live in a dilapidated mansion. The judge, broken by a world too messy for justice, is haunted by his past. His orphan granddaughter has fallen in love with her handsome tutor, despite their different backgrounds and ideals. The cook’s heart is with his son, who is working in a New York restaurant, mingling with an underclass from all over the globe as he seeks somewhere to call home.

I’m also reading The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch, another book I’ve had and left on the shelves for far too long. I’ve read just a few opening chapters and think I’m going to enjoy this book. It’s set in Ireland, where a young woman goes to work as a governess in the remote Gaze Castle only to find there are no children. She is confronted with a number of weird mysteries and involved in a drama she only partly understands.

The last book I read Quite Ugly One Evening by Chris Bookmyre which will be published in May, so I’ll write about it later. It’s crime fiction set on the Atlantic.

Description from Amazon:

An Atlantic voyage. A family at war. A secret worth killing over.

Reporter Jack Parlabane thrives on chasing stories in unlikely places, and where could be less likely than a fan convention on a cruise liner celebrating a contentious Sixties TV series? But unlike the media family exploiting their show’s renewed relevance, he’s not there to stoke controversy: he’s there to solve a murder.

Already in deep water with his employer, Jack desperately needs a win, and solving this decades-old mystery could be it. Problem is, he’s in the middle of the Atlantic, and someone onboard has already killed once to keep their secret.

And that’s not even the tricky part. No, the tricky part is definitely the dead body locked in a stateroom with him, covered in his blood. Now Jack has to solve two murders, otherwise the only way he’s getting off this ship is in handcuffs – or in a body bag.recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.

What will I read next? It could be Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

Like her previous novel The Luminaries, which I loved, this book is set in a fictionalised New Zealand, primarily in and around a national park in the South Canterbury region. The title is taken from a line in Macbeth. It follows members of a guerilla gardening collective, Birnam Wood as, with the help of a charismatic tech billionaire, they undertake a new project on abandoned farmland.

But when the time comes to start another book it could be something completely different.

Top Ten Tuesday: New-To-Me Authors I Read in 2025

Published on by Margaret20 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want. Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to Jana in your own Top Ten Tuesday post. Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists. Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

The topic this week is Bookish Discoveries I Made in 2025 (New-to-you authors you discovered, new genres you learned you like, new bookish resources you found, friends you made, local bookshops you found, a book club you joined, etc.)

I decided to list 10 of the 24 New-to me- authors I read last year. I’ll be looking out for more books by these authors.

Gordon Corera – The Spy in the Archive, nonfiction about Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist who defected to Britain in 1992. Mitrokhin, a quiet, introverted and determined man, was a reluctant defector, because whilst he loved Russia he came to hate the KGB and the Soviet system.

Sarah Freethy – The Seeker of Lost Paintings, historical fiction set in two timelines, one in the 1940s in Italy and the other in 1997 in London and Italy, about the mystery surrounding a lost painting by Carravagio. 

William Horwood – The Boy With No Shoes: a Memoir, (the author of the Duncton Chronicles, which I haven’t read). This is a long and detailed book. It is beautifully written and as he tells the story of his very early life there are many times when it moved me to tears. His writing is so clear that the places and people he describes spring to life as you read. I loved it, one of the best books I read last year!

Alex Howard – The Ghost Cat, a novella and historical fantasy fiction about Grimalkin’s nine lives from 1887 to 2022. As well as the main story there are Grimalkin’s observations and notes explaining various events and technological changes that had taken place in each period.

Ruth Jones – By Your Side, an emotionally charged book as Linda Standish takes on her last case for the Council’s Unclaimed Heirs Unit, tracking down Levi Norman’s next of kin.

Jess Kidd – Murder at Gull’s Nest, crime fiction set in the 1950s in a seaside town. At times it feels like a cosy crime mystery, but it’s also rather dark and foreboding, whereas at other times there’s some humour and also a hint of a romance.

Rhiannon Lewis – My Beautiful Imperial, historical fiction set in the 19th century in both Wales and Chile. It begins in Wales in March 1865 with Davy Davies, a young teenager who is at the age when he must decide whether to work at the mill or to be a sailor like father. It’s based on the actual events of the Civil War in Chile and the experiences of the author’s ancestor, Captain David Jefferson Davies. 

Hannah Richell – One Dark Night, crime fiction, with a spooky, tense atmosphere about the police investigation into the body of a young woman is discovered in the woods the morning after Halloween. I loved it, one of the best books I read last year.

Lynda Rutledge – West With Giraffes, historical fiction with a colourful cast of characters, about the twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. It conjures up a vivid picture of America in 1938 during the Great Depression and the Great Hurricane of 1938, the most destructive storm to strike New England in recorded history until 2012’s Hurricane Sandy.

Owen Sheers – Resistance. I love historical fiction, but this is different – it is alternate history. Sheers speculates upon how the course of history might have been altered if Germany had won the Second World War and invaded and occupied Great Britain, an alarming prospect. The plot centres on the inhabitants of the isolated Olchon valley in the Black Mountains of south-east Wales close to Hereford and the border between Wales and England.

The Unicorn: Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret9 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch is one of the books I’ll be reading soon. It’s one of my TBRs, a book I bought in a secondhand bookshop in Old Melrose in the Scottish Borders in 2014. It’s a book I’d nearly forgotten, double-shelved at the back of one of my bookcases.

The book begins with the strange conversation:

‘How far away is it?’

‘Fifteen miles’.

‘Is there a bus?’

‘There is not.’

‘Is there a taxi or a car I can hire in the village?’

‘There is not.’

‘Then how am I to get there?’

‘You might hire a horse hereabouts’, someone suggested after a silence.

‘I can’t ride a horse’, she said in exasperation, ‘and in any case there’s my luggage’.

They stared at her with quiet dreamy curiosity.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

She had never felt quite like this before, alone in her own mind; and yet not quite alone, for somewhere in the big darkness something was haunting her.

Description from Amazon UK

When Marian Taylor takes the post of governess at Gaze castle, remote house on a beautiful but desolate coast, she finds herself confronted with many strange mysteries. What kind of crime or catastrophe in the past still keeps the house under a brooding spell? And is her employer Hannah an innocent victim, a guilty woman, a lunatic, or a witch?

If you have read this book, what did you think?

The Fox of Kensal Green by Richard Tyrrell

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Salt Publishing| 7 January 2026| 240 pages| e-book| Review copy| 4*

Description

A quiet neighbourhood of London is about to be shattered.

Normally little happens in these mixed streets of families, retirees, podcasters and gossips. A little group create a community garden. An ageing journalist writes nature columns. A left-wing Scotsman longs for the glory days when he interviewed Castro. A disabled professor plans a book clearance. Supine Mario takes far too many drugs. And Wilf Kelly decides to get a fox as a pet.

Can a fox be tamed? Wilf sets out to do it. We follow his journey of self-discovery as he patiently befriends the animal.

When Wilf is accused of an awful crime, he becomes the target of a police and media firestorm. It’s a drama that galvanises not just the community but people from all around London to pour to Kensal Green’s streets. But can anyone prove Wilf’s innocence?

A superbly written debut novel with a big heart, that will make you laugh, cry and remind you of the joy of community spirit.

My thoughts:

I thought I’d enjoy The Fox of Kensal Green by Richard Tyrrell, based on the description above, so I was delighted to find that I loved it. It is an in-depth study of Wilf Kelly, who at the beginning of the book is a young man living on his own after his mother died. He’s a neurodivergent loner, with his own comforting routines, one of which was walking in a wild old cemetery. He loved its memorials, trees and bushes, a place where birds nested and where the brambles had overgrown the graves. It was there he spotted a big red dog fox and decided to make him a pet. His mum used to chant ‘To get love, you give love’ and love meant gifts. So, he brought him gifts of meat hiding it in a thicket under a bush.

He found life confusing and clung to his routines. But he knew he had to change and wondered if he could overcome his fears of people by forcing himself to speak to more people. Could he build bonds with people at the same time as with his fox, and be socially acceptable. Another one of his routines was delivering the Metro newspaper to his neighbours through their letter boxes and he decided to extend his round and actually talk to people. They recognise him as an eccentric and try to support him in their different ways. But then a terrible crime occurs and Wilf becomes the centre of a police investigation, and is besieged by the media.

I was very impressed by this debut novel. I loved all the characters, each one coming across as a real person with their own individuality, and the setting in a quiet London neighbourhood is vividly depicted. I’ve never been to Kensal Green but I could easily visualise the locations, the Victorian terrace houses, the tree streets neighbourhood and the local cemetery, the Kensal Green Cemetery in West London. I found this website fascinating, giving the history of the cemetery. It opened in 1833, in 72 acres of grounds, including two conservation areas, adjoining a canal, and home to at least 33 species of bird and other wildlife. Anthony Trollope and Wilkie Collins, are just two of very many famous people who are buried there.

I loved Wilf. He’s an eccentric character portrayed with empathy. And it is the local community, and in particular Felicia, his childhood friend, who quietly provide him with support, emotionally and practically with gifts, and they rally to defend him when he is suspected of a violent crime. To go into any more would only give away spoilers. This is an original novel that will linger in my mind for quite a while.

Thank you to the publishers, Salt for my review copy of this book via NetGalley.

The Feast of Artemis by Anne Zouroudi

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Bloomsbury| 2014| 288 pages| paperback| library book| 4 stars

Description

The olive harvest is drawing to a close in the town of Dendra, and when Hermes Diaktoros arrives for the celebratory festival he expects an indulgent day of food and wine. But as young men leap a blazing bonfire in feats of daring, one of them is badly burned. Did he fall, or was he pushed? Then, as Hermes learns of a deep-running feud between two families, one of their patriarchs dies. Determined to find out why, Hermes follows a bitter trail through the olive groves to reveal a motive for murder, and uncovers a dark deed brought to light by the sin of gluttony.

This is the seventh in Anne Zouroudi’s unique series of award-winning books featuring the enigmatic and courteous investigator Hermes Diaktoros, a man as much a mystery as the cases he solves. Who dispatches him to where he’s needed? And on whose authority does he act?

Hermes’s uncertain origins bring an additional level of bafflement to these much-loved stories. Perfect for fans of well-written crime thrillers and armchair travellers alike, they combine compelling suspense with touching portraits of Greek life far away from the tourist hotspots most visitors to Greece know.

‘Firmly in the delicious subgenre of crime-cum-gastroporn pioneered by Andrea Camilleri . . . Essentially gloriously sunny escapism, the perfect holiday read’ – Daily Telegraph

This book is the 7th in Anne Zouroudi’s series about Hermes Diaktoros of Athens, the Greek Detective. Each of the books in the series features one of the Seven Deadly Sins – in this one it is the sin of gluttony. It is set in the town of Dendra, where two families of olive growers, the Papayiannis and the Kapsis, are continuing a long standing feud. It begins on the day the town is celebrating the annual feast day, a festival that replaced an ancient feast in honour of the goddess Artemis. But the feast ends in disaster, when a young boy, Dmitris Kapsis is badly burned jumping a bonfire, either through being pushed or by slipping. The Kapsis family immediately blame the Papayiannis.

Hermes is a detective with a difference. Just who he is and who he works for is never explained. He’s most definitely not a policeman and when asked he says he works for the ‘highest Authorities, whose interests lie in justice where there’s been none. I act on their behalf, in the capacity of what you might call an investigator’ (page 161) . He’s described as ‘the fat man‘:

His owlish glasses gave him an air of academia; under his raincoat, his bark-brown suit was subtly sheened, and expertly tailored to flatter his generous stomach. His pale green polo shirt had a crocodile on the chest, and on his feet he wore white shoes, old fashioned canvas shoes of the type once used for tennis; in his hand was a sportsman’s hold-all in black leather, painted in gold with the emblem of the rising sun. (page 14)

Hermes stays in Dendra, investigating what had happened, together with the death of the head of the Papayiannis family, and the deaths of several townspeople from poisoning, allegedly after eating ice cream from the local gelateria. There are many characters to keep in mind, but this is made easier, by the Dramatis Personae at the beginning of the book. And with so much to investigate there are many twists and turns, but Hermes manages to get to the bottom of all the mysteries and along the way we meet his half-brother Dino, an unkempt and dissolute character, with wine-stained teeth and the smell of alcohol seeping through his pores and the flaking skin on his dry lips black from the wine – an interesting version of the god Dionysus.

I did enjoy reading The Feast of Artemis, following Hermes both as he investigates, enjoys all the Greek foods, learns about the impact of technology on the traditional methods of olive oil production, and interacts with the local people. I loved the descriptions of the Greek town and the surrounding countryside. All in all, a most enjoyable book.

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recent Additions to My Bookshelf

Published on by Margaret14 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog.

The topic today is Most Recent Additions to My Bookshelf.